Forest Above the Clouds
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Map Name: Forest above the Clouds
Type: Solo Project
Description:
"Forest above the Clouds" is a standalone environment designed as a part of my personal research. This was my first Unreal Engine project. I was intrigued by the capabilities of Unreal Engine to handle big environments and outdoor spaces. I wanted to take this to a next level even though this was my first project in UE4 (which was not a good idea of-course :p), but it worked out somehow and I learned a lot about Unreal Engine. I did face some optimization problems which made FPS go to an unplayable extent. However, my primary aim was to learn the Unreal Engine and make a standalone environment. I have learned a lot of things while I was in the development phase and I will be using those takeaways in my future projects.
This project showcases an extremely big mountain range with a real world scale of 50 km x 50 km (31 miles x 31 miles). Following is the technical information about the project:
Project Information:
Name: Forest above the Clouds
Softwares Used: UE4, World Machine(WM)
Assets Used: Unreal Engines Official Assets
Size of the Landscape: 50KM x 50KM (31Miles x 31Miles)
Total Textures Used: 5 (Ice, Grass, Rock, Water, Dust)
Total Models Used: 6 (3 Trees, 1 Tree Trunk, 1 Grass model, 1 Rock Model)
Development Process:
1) I started with an idea of designing a mountain peak which is above the clouds. After searching some mountain pictures on the internet I made basic structure of a mountain range with 5 basic colors(as textures) in World Machine(WM) Software.
2) This was the first time I was using World Machine(just like Unreal Engine) and it was easy to find tutorials for beginners about WM. Then I exported the whole landscape to UE4. I did face some problems while exporting the terrain but somehow I was able to solve them.
3) Afterwards, I replaced the 5 basic colors with proper textures depending on the height-map. Now it was time to place some trees and foliage. The official assets which come with UE4 are extremely highly detailed (suitable for AAA games and 4K resolution) but because I did not want to invest time in modeling, I decided to use them.
4) After doing some post-processing, this (screenshots above) was the final result.